xdg-user-dirs

xdg-user-dirs is a tool to help manage "well known" user directories like the desktop folder and the music folder. It also handles localization (i.e. translation) of the filenames.

The way it works is that xdg-user-dirs-update is run very early in the login phase. This program reads a configuration file, and a set of default directories. It then creates localized versions of these directories in the users home directory and sets up a config file in $(XDG_CONFIG_HOME)/user-dirs.dirs (XDG_CONFIG_HOME defaults to ~/.config) that applications can read to find these directories.

Settings

Sysadmins can configure things by editing /etc/xdg/user-dirs.conf. At the moment there are only two settings, you can disable the whole thing, and you can specify the charset encoding used for filenames. They can also set or change the default directories and their initial values in /etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults.

$(XDG_CONFIG_HOME)/user-dirs.dirs specifies the current set of directories for the user. This file is in a shell format, so its easy to access from a shell script. This file can also be modified by users (manually or via applications) to change the directories used. Note: To disable a directory, point it to the homedir. If you delete it it will be recreated on the next login.

Here is a shellscript example of how to find the desktop and the download directory:

For application code the hope is that the various desktops will integrate this and have a nice API to find these directories.

Translations

Translations of xdg-user-dirs are now handled by the translation project. All translations should go through there. The merging from translation project to freedesktop.org is managed by Mikel Olasagasti.